Chapter 9
The charge, Leinto, stood in his gray robes, silently seething over the fact that the leader of the Lady Ronins was late yet again for a training session. She was not taking her responsibilities as the bearer of the Wildfire armor or being the leader of the Lady Ronins seriously and it was starting to wear on the aging man. I'm too old for this. Why can't she just get it together like the others? Her cousin behaves better than she does, thank the gods. I'm going to have to start punishing her in some way for this. Maybe then she'll start coming early. Leinto mused to himself, enjoying his thoughts of punishment.
There was so much he had to teach all of them and Rylea was not making his task any easier with her constant stubbornness and the news he had gotten from his demon sources was not any better either. Word going around the demon community was that a new demon had been found and already there was a reward out for her. The fact that this new demon they were after was female and was just awakening to her powers, troubled Leinto he already suspected that something was happening to Rylea and he feared that she may be this new demon.
She was showing signs of it, little signs here and there, but that was enough to put Leinto on edge. If she was a demon or had any kind of demon connection in her, she would not be able to call forth the armor of Wildfire and that could pose as a problem for all of them. Without the leader of the Lady Ronins, the others would be significantly weaker. This was not something Leinto had been prepared for when he had first been assigned to them all then again he hadn't been prepared to handle five teenage girls either, but had to.
Leinto sighed heavily in annoyance as the time past by and still there was no sign of Rylea. Clearing his throat he got the attention of the other girls who were there, already in subarmor and ready for another day of training. I guess we'll have to go on without her for right now. "Alright girls, we're going to begin now," he instructed as he trudged over to stand in front of them.
Groans and complaints came from the group of girls as his answer some were even confused that he would start without the last member of their group. "Leinto we can't start yet," Keish protested adamantly while uncrossing her orange and white sub-armored arms. "Lea's not here yet."
"I understand this, but we have much to do and Rylea will just have to miss out on it for now. I can not make the rest of us waste valuable time on account of Rylea's lack of interest in training," Leinto reasoned with her.
"Just give her five more minutes and I'm sure she'll be here," Rona pleaded diplomatically, mentally cursing her cousin all the while.
Leinto smiled at the royal-blue-haired, Lady Ronin of Strata. He felt pity for Rona who was always trying to cover for her rebellious cousin. "I am sorry, Rona, but I can not. We must start now. I have only but a short time with all of you each day to teach you what you need to know and that time is being wasted on waiting for someone who obviously doesn't take any of this serious," he replied with a heavy heart, he did feel bad for the poor girl, but that didn't change anything.
"Leinto's right," Heather spoke up from where she stood next to Kami in her green and white subarmor. "Why should we be made to wait for her? It's not like she's any better than any of us."
"Whatever, Heather," Keish retorted angrily. "You're just still mad over the fact that Tadin likes, Lea and not you."
"I am not!" the blond protested back to being accused of such a thing. "Besides, he doesn't like her, he was just being polite to her. That's all."
"And she proves my point right," Keish replied with a wave over in Heather's direction.
"Stop you two, please," the light blue and white sub-armored girl peeped up, moving to stand in-between the two. Kami was considerably shorter and smaller than the two, but still felt that she could stop the argument.
Leinto sighed, smacking his forehead and then dragging his hand down his face as if he were trying to pull away all his stress. This is hopeless. He thought miserably with a shake of his head. "Girls, girls please try and leave arguments for after the training. We need to start now," he pleaded with them, hoping that someone would listen to him this time.
"Come on you guys, we've got work to do," Rona added to help Leinto out. "Let's show a little restraint here."
"Sure thing," Keish said with a smile at the blond she was arguing with before she turned away to face Leinto with crossed arms. Heather kept a glare on the ash-blue, Lady Ronin of Hardrock, but said nothing else to her.
"Now then," Leinto started when he had their full attention again. "Today we are going to-"
"Wait! I'm here! Don't start yet!" Rylea's voice yelled out as she ran to group up with them, cutting Leinto off mid sentence.
Leinto frowned at the sight of the youngest of the five, bent over with hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Rylea held up one finger as she kept her head down, still trying to regain her breath. "Jus' give me a min," she gasped out.
Leinto tried to keep a neutral face as he watched the dark brown-black haired girl catch her breath and then straighten her posture when she had, but his eyes gave away the fact that he was secretly laughing at her. Clearing his throat, Leinto once again tried to start the training. "As I was saying before I was interrupted," he started with an accusing glare over at Rylea who innocently looked away from him. "Today we will be working on your elemental powers."
"Great," Rylea proclaimed with a cheery smile. "Um, what's that again?"
The girls groaned and gave her annoyed glares as Rylea just shrugged and smiled innocently at them. Leinto rolled his eyes to the sky in silent prayer to give him strength. "Now all of you are in subarmor," he said and glanced around at the girls who were already in subarmor all of them except for Rylea. "Most of you anyway," he added with a frown at the still unarmored girl. "Were you planning on joining us today, Rylea?"
"Yeah, yeah, hang on," Rylea told him sardonically as she searched her pockets for her yori orb. Finding the red ball she tossed it in the air, grabbed it with her right hand and was quickly clad in red and white subarmor.
"Good," Leinto proclaimed to her joining them in training. "Now what I need you all to do is think about what your elements are and concentrate on them."
"Um, question," Rylea said, raising her hand timidly to be noticed by the graying charge.
Leinto groaned, she does this on purpose... I know she does, He thought helplessly. "What Rylea, what is your question?" he replied grumpily to her.
"What are our elemental powers exactly?" she asked him innocently.
"Lea!" the girls groaned in exasperation at her.
Leinto took a deep breath and counted down from ten in his head to keep from loosing his temper at her. He had to keep in mind that there was something going on with her and that she had just gotten back on her feet from her spout in the hospital. "Rylea, in your case, your elemental power would be fire. If you don't know what your elemental power is then look at the necklace I gave you and figure it out on your own. If you still can't figure it out, than I can't help you," he explained calmly to her but his voice let on just how annoyed he was becoming. "Now, pair up with someone who you can work with and both of you concentrate on getting your powers to work."
"Hey, um, Leinto. We have an uneven number of people so we'll need to have a group of three," Keish pointed out, already moving to stand with Rona and Rylea.
Leinto smirked, knowing full well that they would need a group of three and had already anticipated that the group of three was going to consist of Keish, Rylea and Rona. He wasn't sure if them being in a group together would be a good idea, given how Keish and Rylea acted when put together, but decided that Rona would keep them in check. With a nod he agreed to the pairing, "Go ahead Keish. You, Rylea and Rona can be the group of three."
"Yes!" Rylea cheered happily and then quickly regained her composure. "I mean, that's great."
Leinto gave Rylea a threatening glare, "If I don't see any work coming from that group, you'll be working with me, Rylea. Got it?"
"Yes sir," she replied to the charge in a way to pacify him. When he had turned his back on them to talk to Heather and Kami, she turned to Keish with a smile and said, "I think I'm starting to get on his nerves."
Keish smiled back and nodded her ash-blue head in agreement, "Yeah, I think so too. He looks like he could choke you like a chicken."
"Good, than I'm doing something right," Rylea proclaimed happily with a smile. "That's what my, Dad looks like too when I've annoyed him to the breaking point."
Keish laughed at her comment, "I know, I've seen him like that more than once."
Rona rolled her purple-blue eyes at her cousin, knowing full well that she was going to have to struggle to get her to do what she was supposed to do. "Alright, lets get to work guys," she commanded the other two girls.
"I'd love to, but I don't know what we're supposed to do," Keish stated to the royal-blue-haired girl.
"Great," Rona grumbled out. "Ok, I'm guessing that we each have to visualize what our power is and then concentrate on making it appear."
"Um," Rylea said with confusion clearly written on her face. "Right, whatever you just said sounds good."
"How 'bout you do it first so we can see what it is you're talkin' 'bout," Keish suggested with a smug smile, her arms now folded over her chest again.
"Fine," Rona replied crossly, she was growing agitated with the two. "I will."
"This outta be good," Rylea mumbled with a chuckle as she too crossed her arms over her chest, setting vivid blue eyes on her cousin as she waited for something to happen.
Rona turned from the two, taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and concentrated trying to picture a funnel of wind or something in her mind. Minutes past and still nothing seemed to be happening. Rylea yawned loudly, almost in a bored fashion and cast annoyed eyes over to her cousin, "Ah, I'm not seeing the action here, Rons."
As if to prove her wrong, the wind started to pick up around the three young girls. At the same time the necklace that rested against Rona's neck began to glow with a dark blue hue. The wind picked up more until it was blowing around them whipping their hair into their faces and rustling the branches on the trees. Leinto and the other two girls stopped what they were doing and turned startled glances over onto Rona who still held her eyes closed in deep concentration.
Leinto smiled in profound astonishment at her accomplishment. "Well done, Rona!" he applauded her when the wind had died down again to the calm breeze it had been.
Rona opened her eyes again, blinking to clear her vision and then looked around at the stunned faces of her friends. "I did it?" she asked back in perplexity.
"Yes," Leinto replied with a fierce nod in her direction. "Your power is air and that was a very good start. You managed to control the winds."
"Wow, how did you do that Rona?" Kami asked her sister in arms with a puzzled smile.
"I just envisioned the winds blowing that hard," Rona answered the light blue clad girl. "I guess that's all it took."
"Cool trick," Heather added disinterestedly, not finding the fact that her friend had managed to accomplish something that she hadn't yet, too exciting.
Leinto smiled proudly, feeling that maybe they weren't as hopeless as he had first thought. Maybe there's hope for these girls yet. At least one of them seems to generally care about this and make an effort. Now if I can just get the rest of them to too, then I'll at least have a fighting chance.
Time was still running out though and even though one of them had learned to use their elemental power, that still left four others who needed to learn it too. Leinto felt a great burden placed on his shoulders the burden of getting the girls battle ready in enough time. They didn't even have their full body armor yet and time, he felt, was running out.
-
Tadin walked out of his room wearing his usual outfit and headed for the door. He was on his way to go and see if he could pick up any good rumors or anything that could help him out. Sato and Adian were passed out on the couch or the floor from the party the night before, when he past them on his way out. Tadin found himself smirking at the thought of the hangovers they'd have when they finally woke up. "Idiots, I told them not to drink so much," he grumbled out loud to himself while opening the front door to exit from the penthouse.
"Hello, Tadin," a mans voice said from in front of him.
Tadin reeled back in shock away from the door, quickly catching himself before he fell though. "Sirous," he grumbled when noticing who was at the door. "Have you ever heard of knocking?"
Sirous lazily leaned against the doorway, his silver hair blew in the breeze that had picked up. "Did I scare you?" he asked him back with a raised eyebrow, a light smile stating to form on his lips.
"No, you just startled me," Tadin replied, angry that Sirous had even thought he'd scared him.
Sirous let a slow, easy smile spread across his lips at his reply. "I bet," he retorted and unfolded his arms from across his broad chest. "I just came by to see if you had found the girl yet."
"Yeah," Tadin replied, regarding the taller man cautiously. "I've also found something very interesting out about the girl and her friends."
Sirous studied him with his slate gray eyes, giving Tadin his full attention, "Go on."
"Rylea and her four friends seem to hold a strong power. I'm not sure what it is yet, but from what I've felt, it's very strong very strong, but untrained," he explained to Sirous who seemed less than intrigued by his findings.
"Interesting," Sirous replied with a lazy smile. "Very interesting. You're regarding the new demon by her name, I take it?"
"Yeah, is there a problem with me doing that? She is still a person and I need to earn her trust before I can start the crossing over. The only thing is," Tadin said and let his words hang in the air as if he needed to think more on what he was going to say. "I don't think she's aware of what she is. I don't even think she's awakened to her powers yet."
"I see," Sirous replied and stroked his chin in thought. "Well then, I guess when you turn her to our side we'll just have to teach her won't we?"
"Yes, but I don't think it'll be that simple. Her powers are awakening slowly, I can sense them, but these other powers I sensed is what worries me," Tadin voiced his concerns with a frown.
"She's a hybrid. Her cravings and instincts will brush over those," Sirous informed him as he began to walk away from Tadin. "Just keep an eye on her and her friends."
Tadin glared at Sirous' back, feeling that Sirous knew something about Rylea and her friends that he wasn't filling him in on for some reason. Sirous was too quick to brush his concerns off he didn't seem worried by the fact that she and her friends had other powers as well. I'll figure that 'what' part out sooner or later, Sirous. You can bet on it.
With a sly grin, Tadin turned from Sirous' fleeing form and headed in a different direction. He had things to find out and a plan to come up with. Finding the new demon was only half his problem, now he had to convince her of what she was and get her to cross to their side before time ran out.
-
The sun was setting low, spreading orange and yellow colors streaking across the sky and the tops of the trees. Night was coming and soon all would be dark, but that didn't seem to bother the young bearer of Wildfire who stood out in the middle of her back yard with her back to the house she seemed very content with the setting sun. Ryo sat on the back deck of his house, watching his daughter standing, as if she were concentrating on doing something with a sense of perplexity he really had no idea as to what she could be doing. Whiteblaze laid at his side, dozing quietly and staying as far away from Rylea as he could. The tiger was still upset with her over the hopping on his tail incident that had happened earlier that morning.
Ryu came out onto the deck, ending a conversation with a friend on the phone and took a seat next to his father in one of the lawn chairs. He pointed out at his sister with his thumb, a questionable look on his face. "What's little miss priss doing?" he asked him with a smirk.
Ryo rolled his tiger blue eyes over to lay on his son with a look that said exactly what he thought about his comment. "I don't know what she's doing, but it's almost time for her to come in," he replied and lazily rolled his head back to stare out at the back yard.
Rylea stood, staring out at the endless trees that surrounded the property her house sat on. She was trying her hardest to copy what she had seen her cousin do, but for some reason it wasn't working out as well as it had for Rona. With a groan of agitation, she snapped her eyes open and gave up on trying to get her power to work. "This is pointless," she grumbled out as she let gravity pull her down to rest on the ground beneath her. "How did Rona do that?"
Ryu smirked, trying to suppress the laugh he knew was coming. Rubbing the back of his head, he glanced over at his father. "I'm guessing she gave up," he told him with a wide grin.
Ryo rolled his eyes at his son, "Well aren't you smart."
"Yes, actually I am," Ryu retorted with a superior grin at him. "I graduated from Han a' High, didn't I?"
Ryo smacked his son upside his head playfully ruffling his brown hair affectionately with a smile. Ryu grumbled protests to his actions and grumpily pushed his hand away from his hair, trying to smooth it back to the way it had been before. Ryo chuckled at his son and stood, stretching his arms and shouted out to his daughter, "Lea, move it girl. Time to come in!" When she didn't respond to him or seem to be in a hurry to move, Ryo looked down at his faithful white tiger to do the job. "Go get her blaze," he ordered the tiger.
Whiteblaze stretched, lazily getting up from where he had been sitting. Glancing up at his master he threw him, what could have been, a glare as he padded off the porch and down to get his master's daughter. Ryo turned from the tiger and headed back inside as Ryu stayed in his seat to watch the poor feline drag his sister back to the house.
Whiteblaze approached the young girl timidly curiously watching her lying on the ground, mumbling things to herself. Cautiously, Whiteblaze came up to her, nudging Rylea to try and get her up when she didn't move the tiger kept nudging her. Rylea growled and sat up, getting the hint that he wasn't going to leave her alone until she was up and moving in the direction of the house. "Alright! I get the picture, blaze," she yelled angrily at the white tiger who only glared back at her in annoyance.
The tiger stared at her a moment longer until he had had enough of waiting for Rylea to make up her mind. Deciding that she had had enough time, the white tiger grabbed a hold of the back of Rylea's shirt dragging the girl along behind him as he made his way back to the house. Rylea gave a howl of protest at the tiger's actions but it meant nothing to him, Whiteblaze simply ignored her and continued to drag the girl behind him by the shirt. Laughing from the porch could be heard as Whiteblaze got closer and closer to it. Rylea recognized the voice of the laughing person as her brother this only infuriated her more. How dare he laugh at me! Grr... he's gonna pay big time when I get loose!
Without warning the flame necklace she wore around her neck began to glow with a red aura and fire sprang up from the grass in front of Whiteblaze. The tiger, surprised, dropped the girl and jumped back from the fire managing to escape with only singed whiskers.
Ryu sprang up from where he sat on the porch at the sight of the fire, cursing in his startled confusion. He looked from the fire that was still crackling to his sister who was sitting on the grass, looking as surprised as he was somehow he knew that she had something to do with it though. "What's going on out here?" came Ryo's voice as he stepped back outside onto the back porch.
He stopped in his tracks at the sight of the flames, peering at them as if he were reading something, and looked over at Whiteblaze who was glowering about something before he flicked his gaze back and forth between his two kids. "Alright," he said finally after a few moments had past and no one seemed to want to explain the flames that were still burning his grass. "Who wants to explain this one?"
Ryu raised his arm and pointed to his sister without saying a word. Ryo sighed, figuring he would do that and turned his questioning gaze over to his daughter the question in his gaze turned to a frown quickly when he found her slowly making her way to the flames. "Lea, what are you doing?" he asked her but he sounded more worried than confused.
"I wanna," Rylea started as she stared at the fire as if she were in some kind of a trance her hand came up from her side and extended out as if she were going to grab the flames. "See something."
"Rylea that's fire, don't you dare touch it," Ryo scolded her, already moving to intervene if he needed to.
Rylea ignored his warning, almost acting as if she hadn't even heard it. Timidly she reached out to the flames fascinated by how they crackled and flickered. Ryo shouted at her to stop, but she wasn't listening to him anymore, she was more focused on the beautiful orange and red flame in front of her. Reaching out with her hand, Rylea at first waved her whole hand through the flame quickly seeing that nothing happened, she held her hand in the fire and again nothing happened to her. The fire simply danced and licked at her hand, not burning her at all. Rylea sharply looked up at her father and brother, smiling at her new finding Ryo and Ryu's jaws had now dropped and their eyes looked out of focus. She smiled at them and held her hand up to show them that she was fine and had no burns.
"How-" Ryo started and then did a double take on what he had just witnessed. "How did you do that, Lea?"
"Great, now my sister is that little girl from Steven Kings book, Firestarter," Ryu grumbled out as he got a hold of himself again.
Rylea ignored them, focused more on running her hand back and forth in the fire like you would in a pool. She was enjoying being able to play with the fire and not get burned feeling only a warm heat being admitted from the flames that should have been burning her flesh. A lot of ways to get back at her brother when he was being mean to her were starting to unfold in her mind. Ryo stepped closer to her, not wanting to get near the flames since he was not in armor, but he wanted to get his daughter's attention. "Lea," he said and she looked up at him. "How did you do that, Jouchan?"
"It's my elemental power," she replied simply as if that should be enough of an answer for him.
"Ok," Ryo responded, still confused as to what she was talking about.
Rylea frowned in concentration as she forced the fire to die down and smother out leaving nothing behind but a burnt patch of grass where it had been. When the fire was gone she brought the hand she had had in the fire up to examine it more closely checking it over and over. "I guess I can make fires and," she said, still looking over her hand. "Because I can make them... I can control them too."
"Great, even better," Ryu exclaimed as he threw his hands up into the air. "Now my little sister is a walking lighter."
Ryo glared over at his son, wishing he would just stop his unnecessary bantering. He wasn't making the situation any better. "Lea, sweetie," he started again in a calm voice. "Why don't we just go inside and we can talk about this later. Just you and me."
Rylea nodded her head slowly in acknowledgment to her father as she looked up from examining her hand following after him and her still ranting brother. A smirk curled around her lips as she thought about her new gift. I can control the flame...because I'm the fire. She thought as she looked down at the crackling flame pendant that hung around her neck.
-
A/N: Wow, what a way for me to end a chap and leave ya'll in suspense. I love it! Anyway, thanks to Sifirela, MorganRay, BlackBull289 and Two-BitGortez for sendin me in a review. You guys are so sweet! lol and I'm gettin very interesting feed back from you guys on this story and let me say this... you guys aren't too far off but that's all I'm gonna say! Chap 10 is already in the process of being started so look forward to seeing another chap from me by this weekend. Ja ne!